8 ms·

I wish people used IRC instead of all of these proprietary tools. I don't love the Slack client, xchat is much better.

by moolcool 9y ago

bamboozled 9y ago
Agreed, there is little that Slack gives me IRC doesn't, a good client and I'm set.
- lghh 9y ago
  Not having to manage a server, better history searching, better ux for less technical users, better user metadata, voice and video calling, and lots of other things. I prefer IRC, but the benefits for a business should be pretty clear for anyone not extremely stuck on seeming like the cool IRC guy in the office.
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    Better multi-device support is huge. And history existing when you come back from not being connected. There are IRC solutions to this but IIRC it's something silly like a client that stays connected 24/7 to manage your user, then another client that connects to that client for your actual interface.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Yes, Quassel and IRCCloud are exactly such solutions. But that always has to happen in such distributed systems, Matrix has the same – your home node actually connects to the Matrix network, and you connect to that. Even on XMPP you end up running an XMPP server somewhere which connects via federation to the actual network, and your clients just connect to that server.
  - jjrh 9y ago
    > Not having to manage a server Seems odd you would want to have you're internal company discussions hosted on a server outside your control. It's especially relevant to companies outside the USA who might not want to have their data under US law. I wouldn't recommend IRC for office communication. XMPP is probably the better tool.
    - lghh 9y ago
      Most companies operate on systems outside of their control. Windows, MacOS, mobile platforms, etc. Why limit it to discussions if that's a concern? If my company makes iOS applications, having to use MacOS and having to live with the possibility that everything that I type is being sent back to some server somewhere that way is just as bad, right?
    - GordonS 9y ago
      > Seems odd you would want to have you're internal company discussions hosted on a server outside your control Our legal department wouldn't let us use Slack, for exactly this reason
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > a good client What IRC client provides: - inline image uploads - multiline messages - chat search, including messages sent while your client is offline - pretty code formatting - pretty text formatting - file uploads - user management I know that IRC accomplishes something like 95% of what a team needs to communicate, but Slack absolutely shines at that last 5%. We currently use Hipchat, and it supports a lot of what I mentioned above, but it supports it badly and it hurts to use by comparison, when I'm in slack for other non-work teams. We need to stop pretending that IRC is a good solution, and admit that it's only a "good enough" solution. It's an MVP you ship to prove to your customers or investors that you've got something, it's not a product you'd spend money to market.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    IRCCloud, Quassel. All of that exists, and can be used.
    - scrollaway 9y ago
      No, stop. Please. I was a huge proponent of IRC but the lack of developments the past... decades has killed it for me. Discord is straight up better. Yes it's proprietary, but no, IRC is just not a good alternative at this point, it hasn't kept up. And I love to death what the IRCCloud guys are doing but it's just not good enough to use as a proper communication tool especially in a company. Admitting this is the first step to fixing it. If you want open source alternatives to win, you can't get stuck telling people the things they like aren't worth supporting. I like the fact that I can do text, voice and video in the same tool; that I have a searchable message history; that I don't have to manage the server myself; that I can make interesting bots with a webhook system and a websocket API; that I can interact with people programmatically over an OAuth2 API; that I can use markdown in messages, embed files and youtube videos, pin messages; that I can manage large communities using a thorough group and permission system (I'm managing a Discord server that has 20k+ people on it, this is stuff that can't be done over IRC quite simply). And you know what, I like the custom emojis too. Quassel isn't good enough (speaking as someone who loves quassel). IRCCloud isn't good enough (speaking as someone who loves IRCCloud and heartily recommend everyone here to support them by buying a subscription). I used to say: Our best chance is that Hangouts is open sourced. Nowadays, I'm rooting for Matrix but I think our best chance is that Discord is open sourced. These protocols, they get developed with very little awareness of what people actually want -- they copy features left and right, try to either support everything and end up a bloated or unusable plugin mess (XMPP) or support nothing and end up unpopular. Most of them are toys. In the end, we need serious players, passionate about creating not just protocols but good interfaces to them. This is hard to find in open source.
- dasil003 9y ago
  You really also need to run a bot server on a reliable connection that can log and index everything to approach the utility of Slack.
  - corndoge 9y ago
    You need to do this on slack unless you pay for it. Comparatively IRC is free and it's actually easier to make a logging IRC bot than it is to make one on slack.
    - dasil003 9y ago
      The time it would take me to research a logging bot, set up a server, add monitoring to make sure it stays up would cost more of my time than purchasing Slack for several years for my small team. I don't see how you claim it can be easier than Slack since Slack by definition has everything stored already, you just have to pay for it.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        Quassel (a bouncer/client combination) has that included. A one-click setup powers my IRC clients with multiple devices and logs even when I’m not online, powers a fulltext search ( https://gluu.kuschku.de/dl/videos/2016-09-16_04-03-36.mp4 https://gluu.kuschku.de/dl/videos/2016-09-16_04-03-36.mp4 ), powers a fully public logger https://gluu.kuschku.de/logs/ https://gluu.kuschku.de/logs/ and much more. All this exists, is free, and just works. And there’s many more such systems that provide this functionality. From IRCCloud to many web clients.
      - corndoge 9y ago
        key point: you have to pay for it re IRC it's not a hard problem to solve whatsoever
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  Custom emojis.
  - bamboozled 9y ago
    This is probably the main thing our company likes about it!
utobi 9y ago
It is possible to connect to Slack with an IRC client: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...
- hueving 9y ago
  That's still a proprietary backend.
oneshoe 9y ago
relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1782/ https://xkcd.com/1782/
Karunamon 9y ago
I wish the IRC meme would die in the enterprise world. It's an evolutionary dead end that ignores the last 20 years or so of improvements and expectations for a messaging system. * Service packages are poor replacements for fine-grained permission controls and registration. * Always-connected clients are poor replacements for message history and push notifications. * DCC is a a poor replacement for video chat, screen sharing, or file sharing. * /whois and /away are poor replacements for user status tracking. IRC had nearly 30 years to evolve and has not. It's time to move on.
- kuschku 9y ago
  > * /whois and /away are poor replacements for user status tracking. That’s why IRC has away-notify, which does exactly what slack and co do for status tracking. > * DCC is a a poor replacement for video chat, screen sharing, or file sharing. That’s why people are working on an RFC for WebRTC negotiated via IRC. > * Always-connected clients are poor replacements for message history and push notifications. That’s why message history and push notification RFCs are being worked on, and already implemented in some IRCds (Snoonet transmits the last 5 minutes before login marked as such, for example, others transmit everything you request) > * Service packages are poor replacements for fine-grained permission controls and registration. That’s something that I hate, too, but some modern IRCds have far better permissions systems nowadays. Oh, and registration and login happens via a standardized SASL anyway, so you can also auth via OAUTH if you have to.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    I notice a lot of "being worked on" in your reply, which really exemplifies the problem. Being worked on might have been okay a decade or two ago, but it's really too little, too late when there's stuff out right now that provides everything IRC does, but better. The mindshare is gone, the user goodwill is gone. A reference implementation of a WIP RFC is rather different from a thing you can download and install and have working right now in a server that isn't likely to change their implementation in a way that makes those features unusable (since they're headline features being sold to enterprises). There's also the fact that most IRC clients suck, with interfaces that look and control like xterm circa 1980. Fine for the people that read Hacker News, offputting for everyone else. Do any of these RFCs or newer IRCd's support full message auditing for the legal folks? SASL is nice, but unless you're into something like Okta or some other homegrown thing, most are going to use plain old LDAP/AD. And AFAIK, permissions on most IRCd's are still pretty spartan. There's no way to make a room visible to one class of users but not others, as there's either visible to all or invisible to all.

I wish people used IRC instead of all of these proprietary tools. I don't love the Slack client, xchat is much better.

bamboozled 9y ago

Agreed, there is little that Slack gives me IRC doesn't, a good client and I'm set.

lghh 9y ago
Not having to manage a server, better history searching, better ux for less technical users, better user metadata, voice and video calling, and lots of other things. I prefer IRC, but the benefits for a business should be pretty clear for anyone not extremely stuck on seeming like the cool IRC guy in the office.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  Better multi-device support is huge. And history existing when you come back from not being connected. There are IRC solutions to this but IIRC it's something silly like a client that stays connected 24/7 to manage your user, then another client that connects to that client for your actual interface.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Yes, Quassel and IRCCloud are exactly such solutions. But that always has to happen in such distributed systems, Matrix has the same – your home node actually connects to the Matrix network, and you connect to that. Even on XMPP you end up running an XMPP server somewhere which connects via federation to the actual network, and your clients just connect to that server.
- jjrh 9y ago
  > Not having to manage a server Seems odd you would want to have you're internal company discussions hosted on a server outside your control. It's especially relevant to companies outside the USA who might not want to have their data under US law. I wouldn't recommend IRC for office communication. XMPP is probably the better tool.
  - lghh 9y ago
    Most companies operate on systems outside of their control. Windows, MacOS, mobile platforms, etc. Why limit it to discussions if that's a concern? If my company makes iOS applications, having to use MacOS and having to live with the possibility that everything that I type is being sent back to some server somewhere that way is just as bad, right?
  - GordonS 9y ago
    > Seems odd you would want to have you're internal company discussions hosted on a server outside your control Our legal department wouldn't let us use Slack, for exactly this reason
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> a good client What IRC client provides: - inline image uploads - multiline messages - chat search, including messages sent while your client is offline - pretty code formatting - pretty text formatting - file uploads - user management I know that IRC accomplishes something like 95% of what a team needs to communicate, but Slack absolutely shines at that last 5%. We currently use Hipchat, and it supports a lot of what I mentioned above, but it supports it badly and it hurts to use by comparison, when I'm in slack for other non-work teams. We need to stop pretending that IRC is a good solution, and admit that it's only a "good enough" solution. It's an MVP you ship to prove to your customers or investors that you've got something, it's not a product you'd spend money to market.
- kuschku 9y ago
  IRCCloud, Quassel. All of that exists, and can be used.
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    No, stop. Please. I was a huge proponent of IRC but the lack of developments the past... decades has killed it for me. Discord is straight up better. Yes it's proprietary, but no, IRC is just not a good alternative at this point, it hasn't kept up. And I love to death what the IRCCloud guys are doing but it's just not good enough to use as a proper communication tool especially in a company. Admitting this is the first step to fixing it. If you want open source alternatives to win, you can't get stuck telling people the things they like aren't worth supporting. I like the fact that I can do text, voice and video in the same tool; that I have a searchable message history; that I don't have to manage the server myself; that I can make interesting bots with a webhook system and a websocket API; that I can interact with people programmatically over an OAuth2 API; that I can use markdown in messages, embed files and youtube videos, pin messages; that I can manage large communities using a thorough group and permission system (I'm managing a Discord server that has 20k+ people on it, this is stuff that can't be done over IRC quite simply). And you know what, I like the custom emojis too. Quassel isn't good enough (speaking as someone who loves quassel). IRCCloud isn't good enough (speaking as someone who loves IRCCloud and heartily recommend everyone here to support them by buying a subscription). I used to say: Our best chance is that Hangouts is open sourced. Nowadays, I'm rooting for Matrix but I think our best chance is that Discord is open sourced. These protocols, they get developed with very little awareness of what people actually want -- they copy features left and right, try to either support everything and end up a bloated or unusable plugin mess (XMPP) or support nothing and end up unpopular. Most of them are toys. In the end, we need serious players, passionate about creating not just protocols but good interfaces to them. This is hard to find in open source.
dasil003 9y ago
You really also need to run a bot server on a reliable connection that can log and index everything to approach the utility of Slack.
- corndoge 9y ago
  You need to do this on slack unless you pay for it. Comparatively IRC is free and it's actually easier to make a logging IRC bot than it is to make one on slack.
  - dasil003 9y ago
    The time it would take me to research a logging bot, set up a server, add monitoring to make sure it stays up would cost more of my time than purchasing Slack for several years for my small team. I don't see how you claim it can be easier than Slack since Slack by definition has everything stored already, you just have to pay for it.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Quassel (a bouncer/client combination) has that included. A one-click setup powers my IRC clients with multiple devices and logs even when I’m not online, powers a fulltext search ( https://gluu.kuschku.de/dl/videos/2016-09-16_04-03-36.mp4 https://gluu.kuschku.de/dl/videos/2016-09-16_04-03-36.mp4 ), powers a fully public logger https://gluu.kuschku.de/logs/ https://gluu.kuschku.de/logs/ and much more. All this exists, is free, and just works. And there’s many more such systems that provide this functionality. From IRCCloud to many web clients.
    - corndoge 9y ago
      key point: you have to pay for it re IRC it's not a hard problem to solve whatsoever
madeofpalk 9y ago
Custom emojis.
- bamboozled 9y ago
  This is probably the main thing our company likes about it!

utobi 9y ago

It is possible to connect to Slack with an IRC client: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...

hueving 9y ago
That's still a proprietary backend.

oneshoe 9y ago

relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1782/ https://xkcd.com/1782/

Karunamon 9y ago

I wish the IRC meme would die in the enterprise world. It's an evolutionary dead end that ignores the last 20 years or so of improvements and expectations for a messaging system. * Service packages are poor replacements for fine-grained permission controls and registration. * Always-connected clients are poor replacements for message history and push notifications. * DCC is a a poor replacement for video chat, screen sharing, or file sharing. * /whois and /away are poor replacements for user status tracking. IRC had nearly 30 years to evolve and has not. It's time to move on.

kuschku 9y ago
> * /whois and /away are poor replacements for user status tracking. That’s why IRC has away-notify, which does exactly what slack and co do for status tracking. > * DCC is a a poor replacement for video chat, screen sharing, or file sharing. That’s why people are working on an RFC for WebRTC negotiated via IRC. > * Always-connected clients are poor replacements for message history and push notifications. That’s why message history and push notification RFCs are being worked on, and already implemented in some IRCds (Snoonet transmits the last 5 minutes before login marked as such, for example, others transmit everything you request) > * Service packages are poor replacements for fine-grained permission controls and registration. That’s something that I hate, too, but some modern IRCds have far better permissions systems nowadays. Oh, and registration and login happens via a standardized SASL anyway, so you can also auth via OAUTH if you have to.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  I notice a lot of "being worked on" in your reply, which really exemplifies the problem. Being worked on might have been okay a decade or two ago, but it's really too little, too late when there's stuff out right now that provides everything IRC does, but better. The mindshare is gone, the user goodwill is gone. A reference implementation of a WIP RFC is rather different from a thing you can download and install and have working right now in a server that isn't likely to change their implementation in a way that makes those features unusable (since they're headline features being sold to enterprises). There's also the fact that most IRC clients suck, with interfaces that look and control like xterm circa 1980. Fine for the people that read Hacker News, offputting for everyone else. Do any of these RFCs or newer IRCd's support full message auditing for the legal folks? SASL is nice, but unless you're into something like Okta or some other homegrown thing, most are going to use plain old LDAP/AD. And AFAIK, permissions on most IRCd's are still pretty spartan. There's no way to make a room visible to one class of users but not others, as there's either visible to all or invisible to all.